Roland Burris

When it comes to scandals — personal troubles and inflamed controversies of all sorts — it often pays to take many deep breaths, go into some form of seclusion or at least adopt radio silence and try to take advantage of the public's short attention span and limited capacity for indignation.

One can remain the center of attention and focus of general opprobrium for only so long until people move on to the next scandal, the next outrage. Even if they don't forgive, they tend to forget.

I call this "Roland's Rule," after Illinois politician Roland Burris. If you remember, the commentariat and the public at large were in a full lather in early January, 2009 after...

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